Inc. has a great article by Jason Fried in his "Get Real" series. It’s about the team at 37signals and talks to the maturation of a company and specifically the development cycles and creative projects. Take a look at the article here – it’s a good read.
I think a lot of people face this with many systems and solutions that are built for a company. I see this with our own systems and creative processes and I see it very frequently when talking with others about their projects. The essence is that you build systems, create and learn best practices and learn how to do it "right," often at the expense of speed and getting it *done*.
Even with servers, you can quickly get caught up in the planning and management of your systems to provide the highest levels of functionality and tweaking. While clearly it’s a good thing to have your systems tuned and running very well, it’s also a hindrance when it comes to getting things out there, to trying new technologies and ideas and to reshaping the solutions you offer and support.
We all tend to get bogged down in meetings and planning. All in search of the perfect solution when it comes to deployment time. "In the beginning" most just did what was needed and had to be done. But somewhere along the way, we switch to better processes. I think these processes are indeed better, but there is a cost. The cost is often time, and quite often completeness and finishing the project.
When you’re building out your next solution, whether it’s a tuning type application or an all-new system, consider whether a more "agile" approach – more iterations, shorter cycles and more active modification along the way – might be a better approach. Even in database management, there is much to be learned from the dynamic and hyper-flexible approach to getting things moving and done.
Surely, there is a balance, but it’s very difficult to find.
What do you think? Let me know…